Red-Braised Prawns 红烧大虾
Red-Braised Prawns is featured among the local specialties of Shandong.
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Red-Braised Prawns (红烧大虾) is a Jiaodong-style dish of Shandong in which whole fleshy prawns are fried and then simmered in stock seasoned with sugar, vinegar and soy sauce. The Yantai (烟台) channel of the Shandong news site Dazhong Net (大众网) lists it among Yantai's foods, and a Yantai travel guide carried by CNTV includes it among the city's dishes.
Ingredients
The dish is built on the fleshy prawn (对虾, duixia), one of the many prized seafoods of the Jiaodong Peninsula (胶东半岛) and its long coastline. These prawns migrate between the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea each spring and autumn. Hao Yixing (郝懿行), in his book 'Haicuo' (《海错》), wrote of Bohai prawns about a foot long that fishermen netted and put together two by two, then dried or salted and sold as duixia, 'paired prawns'.
The Dazhong Daily recipe calls for four pairs of large prawns weighing about 1 kg in all, with sugar, chicken stock, vinegar, soy sauce, salt, Shaoxing wine, spring onion, ginger and lard for frying.
How it is made
The grit sac in the head and the vein are removed, but the shell stays on. The prawns are deep-fried in lard over a high flame until about half cooked. Spring onion and ginger are then fried in a little of the fat, the stock and seasonings go in with the prawns, and everything simmers over a low flame for five minutes. The prawns are lined up neatly on a plate, the onion and ginger are discarded, and the pan juices are poured over. The sauce should be thick enough to cling to the prawns so that they take on its flavour, and the prawns must be fresh and cleaned well, or they taste off.
Flavour and texture
The finished prawns are a glossy red, with tender flesh and a fresh, savoury taste; Dazhong Net describes the dish as long praised within Shandong cuisine for its colour and flavour.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.